Swan
The swan denotes a union of air and water, opposites, solar life, purity, poetry, fertility, and spiritual breath; heraldry uses it decoratively.
Our paraphrase of what the sources say it carries.
At a glance
- Type
- Symbol
- Borne by
- 1 figure
- Traditions
- Slavic folklore (1)
Figures that bear it
A model judged each figure against its own description, one term at a time. Is: the figure is a kind of this thing. Bears: it carries the thing or is marked by it. What a figure does is filed under motifs and powers. Open "why" for the sentence the judgement rests on.
- Vila is Slavic folklore
why
Vile are consistently described as skilled shape-shifters, able to take the form of a swan, a horse, a wolf, a falcon, or a whirlwind, and some tellings hold that a Vila can be captured or bound by stealing her wings, veil, or a lock of her hair while she bathes or dances, a motif shared with swan-maiden tales found elsewhere in Europe.